I had a similar experience at Harvey Normans. One of the Home Theatre guys (who's quite prominant in the store, but not sure of his 'rank') tells me I need to buy the more expensive receiver because the cheaper ones wont allow the HD audio on blurays because the PS3 'can't handle it'?

The PS3 has all the HD audio logos printed on the side of it (bar DTS Master which was added later as a firmware update). A bit more investigation shows the PS3 can't pass (bitstream) the HD audio signals to the receiver to decode anyway, so there's nothing to be gained on that front no matter what receiver you pick. (Though obviously there will be other improvements as you go up the models in other areas).

I think people who buy the more expensive gear are still going to be happy as undoubtedly the more expensive stuff will still sound good. It's just they could often have the same end result for less.

haha its not just DSE that suck at what they do nor harvey normans either i can add Noel Lemmings and WareHouse Stationary aswell for example

3yrs ago my brother asked me what he'd need in a computer that he could do work on and the the kids could play games on nothing serious just a few little DX7/8 games on so i gave him a list of things to tell the sales person that he wanted in the comp he wished to buy well bugger me if he doesn't come home with exactly the peice of crap he didn't want because the sales guy talked him out of what he needed and into something wholey inadequit for what he wanted it to do
winxp home
256MB ram
onboard video
40GB Hdd
not only that it didn't have a game port for a joystick so he went back and they sold him a USB joystick but the problem with that was there was only two count em two usb ports both used by 1 mouse and the other by the keyboard DOH ahwell next time he'll listen to me and not some drongo sales person

Man I still can't believe they do this, even now they're still supplying computers with just 512 or 1gb ram, it's just crazy. That's enough to run the op system and nothing else.

I think the whole game has changed now with the internet. Once upon a time you'd just have to take the sales guys word for it, but now you can easily check other peoples experiences with the same gear. It's also highlighted that they are indeed sales people, so they're not exactly working for you in this interaction.

hamisht: I guess so, but its usually funnier if they try to make out that they know stuff. Occassionally I go in there just to test them (yes, I have no life) and laugh at their stupidity.

That's my favourite lunchtime sport - haha, I could almost write a book - favourite quote from a couple years ago, "HDMI port, no you won't need that as it is only backed by one or two brands - only component inputs will be universally supported in the future"

DSE employees shouldn't comment about technologies they are unsure/don't know about, but it's just as bad to bait an employee, earning minimum wage, about one specific product, from a catalogue of thousands of products, and expect them to understand everything and know everything.

I hate when I hear customers doing this to DSE staff, it's unreasonable to expect from anyone.